I just bought an 811 and have some ????'s

[DarrellP]

I purchased an 811 from a forum member who switched to D*. It has been decommissioned since around Christmas, so I know it will need the latest software upgrades, but are there any quirks with the 811 that I should be aware of? I have only owned a Dish 6000 for HD so I am unaware of any quirks the 811 may have. Should I sub to Locals to have them in the EPG?

Thanks.

 

[tonyp56]

You don't need to sub to Dish Network locals to get EPG data for OTA DTV stations on the 811, right now! (could always change)

Quirks? It's a Dish Network receiver, of course it has some quirks, however, my 811 seems to work fairly stable now, if this 811 has been disconnected since December, you may or may not be getting 287, (which is the latest right now) I don't think it still has gone wide spread, and therefore you may or may not get it. You should be at 284 right now, which is fairly stable, (best since I got my 811! including 287!!!). Besides that, there really isn't that much, if it is 284 and it doens't update to 287 then you can only store 120 channels between all four favorite lists, most of the DIsh Home apps are there, and generally it works fine. There is some issues with using recall between ota and satellite channels. Beyond that, it is a typical Dish Network receiver.

Of course, you could have problems that no one else has! But I don't think you will see that big of a difference as far as quirks go between the 6000 and the 811. I have to 301's and they do pretty much the same kind of things as my 811 does. (EPG problems, etc...)

 

[DarrellP]

Thanks, Tony. Does the 811 have the same issue timing out while on OTA and have to acquire the sat signal? I hope not, this issue and the slow EPG is the only thing I don't care for with the 6000.

 

[noremac]

I just switched from a 6000 to an 811 also. I have observed some of the same problems with the guide timing out when staying on an OTA station, but it's not nearly the same level of problem that the 6000 had. My experience is that turning the 811 off every night after tuning a Sat channel seems to make it very stable. You're going to love the 811 overall and ask yourself why you waited so soon to ditch the 6000! (At least, that's what I asked!)

 

[DarrellP]

Thanks noremac, I usually use the transparent surf to get off an OTA channel and back to sat with my 6000. As far as waiting so long, I was not too impressed with the other options Dish has put out until the 811 stabilized and the 942 came out. With the impending MPEG-4 upgrade coming, I figure I have about 3 years of life out of these 2 boxes before I have to ditch them.

The main functionality I wanted was to be able to record something to my DVR while watching a show in HD. It's a pain to have to switch the 6000 to SD then watch it through my DVR upconverted. I'll get a HD DVR when MPEG-4 rolls out.

 

[DarrellP]

One other question: I have the HDPack, Voom10 & Showtime Movie package, will I be able to get the Interactive feature of the 811 or does that require a basic package?

Thanks.

 

[dfergie]

The main functionality I wanted was to be able to record something to my DVR while watching a show in HD. It's a pain to have to switch the 6000 to SD then watch it through my DVR upconverted.

Yup, thats what the 6000 wont do, Have my D* hd box hooked to Replay and my 921 hooked to my Panasonic dvd Recorder now... I can watch in hd and record downrezzed...